Bobfoc

Dragons without the whole "Dany kinda forgot about the Iron Fleet" contrivance ought to be good. Focusing on the suffering left in the wake of a dragon attack is what I want to see the writers going for. The wagon train attack in Series 7 was a good example of how to do that, and the attack on Kings Landing sort of did, despite all its faults.

The more I think about this Fire and Blood series, the less I'm interested in the other one. Even though The Long Night is more of a blank canvas, it's still ultimately centred around the White Walkers, who have never done much for me. The political struggles of humans is much more interesting to me than a black-and-white "good versus evil" tale.

Sadly, Jedi Outcast won't have multiplayer, but Jedi Academy apparently will. I had a lot of fun playing against bots. The lightsaber combat was great for its time.

Man City now have a +18 goal difference after six games, with Watford sitting on -14. Only Liverpool are within 14 goals of Man City and Watford are 9 behind the next worst team, Norwich.

Great start to the competition. We've had two close matches already, and now New Zealand and South Africa are playing. I wouldn't be surprised if they met again in the final.

I thought for a while that they were going for an "only one game per franchise" rule, but they have two Zelda games, so that's out.

I find it quite interesting because, as we saw, it has a mixed response from people on this board. Perhaps being about halfway up reflects that in an odd sort of way.

I think there are certain games that have aged well because nobody else has built on them. Viva Pinata comes to mind. In other cases, simplicity is very helpful. Papers, Please is likely to stand the test of time because its mechanics are so basic that they're simply a means to an end, rather than the sort that rely on precision. The biggest problems games face in terms of achieving universal appeal are to do with barriers to entry. As long as you don't have significant visual and/or aural impairments, the consumption of literature, music and film is straightforward, whereas one's relationship with a game is dependent on many more factors. A whole range of disabilities can inhibit a player's capacity to play through a lot of games, as can the mere lack of skill. Not only that, but we're still very much in a world of console exclusives, meaning that having access to everything is a lot more expensive than in other forms of entertainment.

I agree with this. In terms of raw fun, it's the pinnacle of the MGS series. In every other regard, though, it's a long way below its predecessors.

I was surprised to see MGS V as Metal Gear's only representative on the list. I was sure Snake Eater would be on there above that. There's a noticeable lack of PC games too. World of Warcraft is there, as you'd imagine, but it would have been nice to see some strategy games, like Total War, Civilization and Crusader Kings. Also, even though they're not my thing, I was really expecting Starcraft 2 and League of Legends.

The Development Centre stuff looks nice.

Was it Title Bout Championship Boxing?

Does anyone else remember Club Football back in the mid-2000s? That club-specific version reminds me of it.

Dirt Rally 2.0, Jump Force, Bad North and Lego Worlds have also been announced. All of them interest me to some degree.

Something like that was planned for the next Title Bout Championship Boxing, but development seemed to stop in 2016. It's a shame because I'd be up for a decent boxing management game.

You mean it's pretty radroach?

Salzburg are really giving it some.

It looks like Mr. Benn sitting on an invisible chair.

From what I've heard, 12 splits opinion more than any of the other games. Some hate it, but it's been regarded by others as the best one. I haven't played it myself.

It's where most people get stuck in real life.

I like the sound of that more than the other prequel series. I'd be very happy with any focus on the Targaryen dynasty, but I'd love it if they made an anthology series that covered the whole of Fire and Blood.

I think I'd struggle to think of more than ten albums from 2000 onwards that I really like.

Probably old news, but a good film podcast is Cinema Swirl. It features Kefin Mahon from the Attitude Era Podcast and his friend Sam, who watches popular films for the first time and talks about them.

I've only heard of one of those albums.

I first played 7 in 2012, so I didn't have the cushion of nostalgia to skew my judgement in the same way I do with other games of the era. I found the random encounters a tad irritating and there were a few sections that are more tedious than fun, but I also thought that the storytelling, characters and locations were great. People make fun of the graphics, but I think they're endearing and lend a lot to the power of imagination. I also have the unpopular opinion that the pre-drawn backgrounds are really nice. As far as difficulty goes, 7 is often considered one of the easiest in the series, and the remasters have the cheat options that others have mentioned. I have to admit that I used the internet a few times to remind myself of the geography of the world map, and there were a couple of other times when I needed to look up where to go next, but I do that in most old games anyway.